FABULOUS STORIES OF THE WOLF. 
265 
destruction of the wolves. All the marksmen, all the peasants 
are convoked to take part in this operation — some to guard the 
passes, others to track the forest. 
Why have these great battues, executed by such numbers of 
men interested in the extermination of the wolf, so seldom pro- 
duced a useful result ? It is because the wolves are not fools 
enougli to be frightened with noise like the foxes and hares. The 
wolves say to themselves, these fellows would make less noise if 
they were armed ; it is then, on their side that the path of safety 
lies ; and instead of running before those who are beating the 
bushes, the wolves quietly turn back upon them, and the chase is 
missed. 
It has been affirmed that the v/olf, imposing on the heedless and 
adventurous character of the goat, has accosted the goat with a 
willow branch in his mouth, and by this deceit drawn it to a sol- 
itary spot where he devoured it. . . 
And that there were in Algiers a species of wolves which watch- 
ed fishermen on the seashore, and forced them under pain of death 
to share the produce of their fishery. 
In the first place, there are no wolves in Algiers ; there have 
been elephants there, but that is not exactly the same thing. Be- 
sides, the wolves care as little for fish as fish do for apples. 
There has been another species of wolves spoken of, that enter- 
ed towns in broad daylight without sending their cards, and seized 
upon all the beasts they could meet with. 
These familiar habits rather belong to the manners of the hye- 
na and jackal than to those of the wolf. I suspect the hyena of 
having cast ill reports on the wolf in the Holy Scriptures, and in 
ancient history — the hyena, of which it has been written, that it 
imitated the voice of the shepherd so as to deceive one, and called 
the dogs up by their names in order to devour them. 
I pass over these stories and better ones. The calumny of man 
has pursued the wolf beyond death. To his skin has been attrib- 
ted the singular property of producing vermin in those of sheep 
by simple contact. It has been said that it was impossible to ob- 
tain an accord from two cords of an instrument — made one of a 
wolf’s gut, the other of a sheep’s ; finally they have seen drums 
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